Walkmans are back on beat to rival the iPod

Tomorrow Sony unveils its most advanced version of the gadget — the X series — an MP3 player that can also play video and access websites.

Sony hopes it will compete with Apple's iPod Touch and allow the Japanese manufacturer to regain its once dominant position in the portable music player market.

The X series has a three-inch touchscreen made from a technology known as OLED, which uses far less power than current screens. Sony has also taken the amplifier technology from its home audio systems and shrunk them for the Walkman.

It is the most sophisticated version of a device that quickly became a design classic as the world's first practical portable music system after its launch in 1979.

The Walkman, originally meant for cassette tapes and later redesigned for CDs, was supposedly invented for the then chairman of Sony so he could listen to his opera collection on longhaul flights.

Tom Wiggins, news editor of Stuff magazine, said the Walkman name had an enduring quality virtually unmatched in the world of gadgetry.

Back to the future: the new X series MP3 which plays music and internet videos

He said: "It would be silly to get rid of it as it now represents so much about portable music, particularly for anyone growing up in the Eighties or Nineties. It is only people who got into music in the past five years for whom the iPod means portable music rather than the Walkman."

Design expert Stephen Bayley said: "I remember flying to New York with a Tomorrow's World crew who had an advance copy of the Walkman and people simply could not believe the quality of the sound, their eyes were rolling in their heads. Aesthetically it was nothing particularly interesting but it was a masterpiece of what Japanese industry is good at."

Wes Deering, spokesman for Sony, said: "This is really a new era for the Walkman, and it has been a while since we have had a product we are this proud of.

"We have worked very hard to make this the best quality portable audio and video player on the market. We've worked closely with our home cinema team for the audio, with our TV people for the screen, and we are very happy with what we've produced. While the iPod is a very good product, we believe that people who value quality will prefer the X series."